Move APFS partition to other MBP

[Zen5656]

Hello!
I have a MacBook Air with High Sierra SSD in APFS. How can I move an entire partition to for example a new MacBookPro SSD with a backupdrive (spinning/nonflash) "inbetween". I mean backup and restore 1:1 without the migration assistant.

Can Carbon Copy Cloner maybe first decrypt to HFS+ to the backupdrive and then I restore with disc manager on the new MBP?

Thanks

 

[CoastalOR]

Hello!
I have a MacBook Air with High Sierra SSD in APFS. How can I move an entire partition to for example a new MacBookPro SSD with a backupdrive (spinning/nonflash) "inbetween". I mean backup and restore 1:1 without the migration assistant.

Can Carbon Copy Cloner maybe first decrypt to HFS+ to the backupdrive and then I restore with disc manager on the new MBP?

Yes.
Make sure your external spinner drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) will work perfectly for your situation. It will also clone the Recovery partition from the internal to the external and then from the external to the new SSD. It was not clear in your post if the new MBP SSD would be formatted as HFS+ or APFS, but it should work either way. Check the CCC web site.
https://bombich.com/features
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/high-sierra-testing-and-known-issues
https://bombich.scdn1.secure.raxcdn.com/sites/default/files/bulk_pdf/ccc5-documentation-en.pdf

Make shure you have CCC v5 (I think the latest version is 5.0.5). It will read the HS APFS from the internal and clone it to the external spinner HFS+.

 

[BLUEDOG314]

I would say don't bother converting anything to HFS+ again. Boot the Air to INTERNET recovery, then use hdiutil to make a clone of the APFS container on the Air. This way you get everything in the container, preboot, recovery, etc. You will however have to imagescan before you restore to the new MBP, but thats probably beneficial if anything. In a nutshell, from the Air internet recovery terminal:

hdiutil create --srcdevice /dev/diskXsY --format UDZO /Volumes/ExternalDriveName/YourImageName.dmg

In the above, diskXsY is obtained from diskutil list when you find the APFS container disk identifier.

Then, use:

asr imagescan /Volumes/ExternalDriveName/YourImageName.dmg

After that runs, you can then connect the external drive to the new MBP, use its internet recovery and terminal and do:

asr restore --source /Volumes/ExternalDriveName/YourImageName.dmg --target /dev/diskAsB --erase

Again, in the above, diskAsB is the MBP's disk identifier for its APFS container.

 

[Zen5656]

Thank you both! So it should be possible to backup and restore 1:1 despite APFS encryption.